Sylvia listened soberly.  She wondered what her mother would say if she knew of her promise to Mrs. Carleton to take a message to Fort Sumter if Mrs. Carleton should ask her to do so.

The warm days of early March made the southern city full of fragrance and beauty.  Many flowers were in bloom, the hedges were green, and the air soft and warm.  Sylvia and Grace often spoke of Flora, and wished that they could again visit the plantation.

Philip had brought Sylvia a letter from Flora, thanking her for the locket, and hoping that they would see each other again.  Philip had not come into the house.  He seemed much older to Sylvia than he did on her visit to the plantation in October.  He said that Ralph was in the Confederate army.  “I’d be a soldier if I was only a little older,” he declared; and Sylvia did not even ask him about Dinkie, or the ponies.  She wished that she could tell him that very soon she was going to Boston, but she knew that she must not; so she said good-bye, and Philip walked down the path, and waved his cap to her as he reached the gate.

It had been many weeks since the Butterfly had sailed about Charleston harbor.  But the little boat was in the charge of an old negro who took good care of it.  The negro knew Sylvia, and he knew that it was through her interest in Estralla that the little negro girl and her mother had been given their freedom.  Now and then he appeared at Aunt Connie’s kitchen, and one warm day toward the last of March, when Sylvia was wandering about the garden, she saw Uncle Peter going up the walk to the rear of the house.

“Oh, Uncle Peter!  Wait!” she called and ran to ask him about the boat.

Uncle Peter had a great deal of news to tell.  He said that unless Major Anderson and his soldiers left Fort Sumter at once that all the forts, and the new batteries built by the Confederates, would open fire upon Sumter and destroy it.

“I hears a good deal, Missy, ‘deed I does,” he declared, “but I doan’ let on as I hears.  Massa Linkum he’s gwine to send a lot o’ big ships down here ’fore long.  Yas, indeed.”

“I wish I could have a sail in the Butterfly again,” said Sylvia, a little wistfully.

“Do you, Missy?  Well, I reckons you can.  I doan’ believe any body’d stop me a-givin’ yo’ a little sail ‘roun’ de harbor,” said Uncle Peter.  “I ‘spec’s Major Anderson is a-waitin’ an’ a-watchin’ fer dem ships of Massa Linkum to come a-sailin’ in,” continued the old negro; for it was a time when the colored people were eager and hopeful for some news that might promise them their freedom.

Sylvia knew that Mrs. Carleton was worried and unhappy.  It was known in Charleston that Fort Sumter was near the end of its food supplies, and that unless the Government at Washington sent reinforcements and provisions very soon by ships that the little garrison would be at the mercy of the Confederates, who were daily growing in strength.